jester from Cook

Any day when it's not raining, i am greeted with the sight of Nenookaasi sitting atop an Amur cherry tree about forty feet outside my north dormer window. The hummingbird and many of its relatives have taken up residence in nearby cedar trees which provide great cover for them from the time they arrive in mid-May until they leave in mid-October. i call the big cedars just off my deck, Le Château, because many families of hummingbirds live there and regularly come to sip the nectar i put out for them. Occasionally, when the feeders are empty, one bold one will hover and chirp just outside my back door to remind me that it, and the rest, are waiting. This year i put out two feeders to keep the skirmishes that often occur less frequent and intense....it hasn't, but there are now more hummers, and i marvel at each and every one. Their size, speed, strength and agility, not to mention their iridescence is remarkable. Once, i spoke with an ornithologist and asked why all the fighting around the feeders; she said the males wish to keep other males away so their female partners can have the best shot at reaching the food source, though i suspect there may be more to it. It appears they simply like the chase sometimes, to show off their aerial skills and valour. Once the plums, various apple trees, highbush cranberries, and chokeberries, and other early bloomers are done flowering, they move to whatever remains flowering in what used to be my gardens and when the little ones they've produced first take flight, they appear as oversized bees...so tiny, but just as fierce. On rare occasions, once we're well into the summer and they have become accustomed to my presence, if i sit very still and my dog Mino is busy elsewhere, one will come sit on my ball cap for just a few seconds...a blessing of sorts. But, my solitary friend, my wake-up greeter, who seems to have declared itself the chief pollinator and catcher of small insects, keeps watch over my patch and i am grateful.

On This Day — June 25,26, 1876

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes"
— attributed to Mark Twain

In 1861, George Armstrong Custer, born in Ohio and raised in Michigan, entered the military academy at West Point. While there he amassed a record setting 726 demerits and caught a case of gonorrhea; he finished last in his class. Custer served in the Union Army during the Civil War where he led many men into battle, even managing to be at the Courthouse in Appomattox when Robert E Lee agreed to terms of surrender to Ulysses S. Grant. When the War was over, he decided to remain a military man and was commissioned to lead the US Seventh Cavalry in 1866 reporting to Gen. Winfield Hancock's expedition to deliver a campaign of shock and awe to the Indigenous tribe of the Great Plains with the sole purpose of driving the people off their lands and into submission. But there was a problem. Custer was unaccustomed to Indigenous war tactics, guerrilla tactics, He lost control of skirmishes and battles and upon doing so lost control of himself. He was perceived by his men as being more and more erratic, even ordering Army deserters to be shot without trial before he, himself, deserted because he missed his wife, Libby, and left his unit to go see her. For this he was court martialed, and having been found guilty, was forced to suspend his rank and pay for one year.

Custer was a narcissist of the first order and a man unashamed of self-aggrandizement. Full of bravado, he regularly sought coverage by the newspapers inviting journalists to events and battles in which he was featured. His style of dress became more theatrical in nature and his troops regularly commented upon his vanity. Custer demonstrated no remorse for the many Indigenous women, children and elders he killed. His impatient and aggressive style on the field of battle led to extraordinary losses of the men he commanded, yet because of his 'wins', he was regarded by his superiors as a man of esteem and valour. After his year in exile from the Army, Custer reupped with the 7th Cavalry and his command was restored.

In 1868, the Laramie Treaty, which included the Black Hills, was signed between the US Government and the Lakota people. However, white people continued to make incursions on Indigenous land and despite their reports of their land being stolen, the game and fish decimated, and actual attacks on their villages to the government, their complaints were ignored. By 1874, when rumours of gold being present on treaty territory, the tensions between white settlers and Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples were in a pitched state. In that same year, Custer led the 7th Cavalry into the Black Hills and fed the rumours of gold to the press which added to the influx of speculators not just seeking land but riches. U.S. Grant offered to buy the land in 1875 from the Lakota in exchange for their moving on to government reservations by January 31st, 1876...or be seen as hostile to the government and subject to forcible removal. Because the various bands were remote and disbursed, many of them did not receive the orders, but if they had, there was not enough time to move the many women, children and elders to government agencies. Sitting Bull, a powerful Lakota leader, gathered all the small bands together in the spring along with numerous reservation dwellers to resist the US Army and white invasion of their lands; their way of life was at stake. Sitting Bull's group came to settle in Crow territory in southeastern Montana on the Little Big Horn River, however, despite the fact they were bitter enemies and the Crow were collaborating with the US. Still it was a remote, little used section of land on which to organize and plan a strategy for dealing with the situation.

One of Custer's mistakes, if you can call it that, was in underestimating the size of the resistance. He figured on 800 warriors; he got 2,000 Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho people, some women among the fighters. His personal flaws led him to think he was invincible...that he was destined for victory. His impatience made him lose control and led to critical errors. His vanity made him late to planning sessions with his fellow commanders. And he was sure to get word out to the press to have journalists there to watch 'his' victory.The Battle of Greasy Grass (the Little Big Horn) was named because the ground became so soaked with blood after the battle, it was slippery to walk upon. At the end of the two hour battle, Custer lay dead on the ground, his body stripped of clothing as two Cheyenne women knelt over him poking holes in his eardrums so that he may 'hear better in the afterlife'. Custer had broken every treaty he ever made and had promised one of the women who pierced his ears that he would never fight Indigenous people again.

This week marks the 150th anniversary of that event. Multiple tribes across the Northern Great Plains will commemorate it with dances, ceremonies, festivals, and gatherings of all sorts, not because they beat the odds of winning the battle, but as a declaration of what a broad coalition, unified, multi-tribal, and diverse in nature can do when they work together; and to say that despite all the government's efforts to exterminate us, to break us, to sow doubt in our ability to rise up, we are still here.

'History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.'

Mi'iw.
— jester